Democrats Should Hate the DNC - and EVERYONE Should Hate the Media!

Friggin' SLATE...!!!

It's even too much for friggin' SLATE to accept without comment!

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You probably did not know that on Friday night, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow hosted a presidential candidates’ forum in South Carolina featuring Martin O’Malley, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton.

* NOPE! I WAS UNAWARE OF THIS! NOW HAVE I READ ANYTHING ABOUT IT SINCE THEN... EXCERPT FOR THIS ARTICLE IN SLATE!

I only learned of this a few days beforehand, and it is my job to keep abreast of events such as this.

Even if you did know, you probably didn’t watch, because it was on Friday night and you, the gregarious Slate reader-about-town, have all sorts of better things to do.

You also may not be aware that the same three candidates will be debating this Saturday night. Nope, not some dopey forum or cattle call or “day-dinner” type thing: an actual real life pres-ee-dential debate, one of the six sanctioned by the DNC. On Saturday night, just as the college football season is coming down the stretch, and people who aren’t watching college football are out doing things like enjoying themselves with friends and family.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

The third Democratic debate will take place on the evening of Dec. 19, also a Saturday.

The fourth debate will be on a Sunday during the NFL playoffs, and it will be the final debate before nominating contests begin.

It’s not new information that the Democratic primary debate schedule is both thin and designed to keep the number of human viewers to a minimum. Non-Hillary Clinton candidates like O’Malley and Sanders have been complaining about this, reasonably enough, for months.

* BUT THERE COMPLAINTS HAVE BEEN LARGELY MUTED.

It’s sparked a public feud among leaders of the DNC — or, more likely, caused a long-existing rage with Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s mysteriously lengthy tenure atop the DNC to burst into the open.

Let’s play sucker and try to make a good-faith defense of Wasserman Schultz’s stewardship of the 2016 primary process.

* AGAIN... THIS IS SLATE... NOT NRO...

Her job is to ensure both a fair primary process and the general election viability of the eventual Democratic nominee. Since Clinton will almost certainly become that nominee, then, Wasserman Schultz’s job is to protect Clinton. That’s why there are only six debates, and why three of the four debates are scheduled for time slots when few will be watching: It prevents Clinton from being nicked up too much by Sanders and O’Malley, or from saying something that may not play well to a more centrist general election audience.